It’s not just hypersensitivity

The world is not divided into rocks and sieves. And people are not divided into non-sensitives and mediums. We just never talk about it. Today, for instance, is the first time I ever heard the official term ‘Highly Sensitive Person’ (HSP). Researcher Elaine Aron first coined it in 1991 and has been doing research on it ever since: http://hsperson.com/ I learned about it in a TedEx by Elena Herdieckerhoff, dated from June 2016: ‘The gentle power of highly sensitive people’. The way she explains the plight of the HSP – the alienation, the guilt – is comforting – or is it?

We probably all know the phenomenon. It is when you think of a sibling you have not seen in ages and he calls the next minute. Or your friend who has been gone for a month and she texts you. Sometimes, it translates into words. This one evening, as I was getting dropped off home by my brother, I heard the word ‘keys’ loud and clear resounding in my head while I was shutting the car door. It startled me but I did not take heed. I had left without them – in my pajamas, to top it all off, because the errand was unexpected – but I knew there were people home, so no reason to panic. Except that no one was answering the doorbell. And I ended up spending more than two hours waiting in the cold on my front door step. I do not even remember the unexpected reason why the house was empty. But I do remember how easily I could have avoided the situation – had I only listened.

Other such moments of synchronicity have happened to me with people. I remember a scene that took place one of the first times I was snowboarding. I was doing pretty well, quite happy with myself, zooming by my friend who had stopped on the side of the slope to talk with a snowboarder taking a rest. About a second later, I heard in my head: ‘she is not doing bad, really.’ And bam! I tripped and fell to my knees. I know what I had heard did not come from me – it was intrusive – it messed with my concentration. And guess what, just minutes later, as my friend came to see if everything was alright she told me jokingly: ‘that is so funny: I was just telling that guy how you are learning to snowboard and as soon as he told me you were not doing badly, you fell big time!’ Yes… hilarious… really… What is even more disconcerting is that the phenomenon goes both ways. I always feel a bit disturbed when I get a confirmation that I have been sending out my thoughts so loudly that someone was able to pick up on them. Even if I do not do it on purpose and I do not control it.

How these things happen is not the point. The point is that they do. And from there, it is easy to suppose that we receive much more information than we realize. Sure, I can easily recount the instances of hyper-empathy/telepathy I was conscious of when they happened. But what about the countless others I was less attentive to and maybe even entirely unaware of? The only difference is that they are more subtle, like when you suddenly feel anger and cannot understand where it is coming from. You start looking around and notice the only thing that has changed in your environment is a colleague who has just sat down two desks behind you. She has not uttered a word since coming in, and then, out of the blue, she starts complaining vehemently about her morning to another colleague. Then, it suddenly makes sense. (Just one of the many joys of open space offices.)

And if we receive much more, we probably store much more. What I am getting at is that the notion of hypersensitivity/ empathy/ telepathy would explain why when you cleanse a memory, you may get the impression that your work is also impacting the person with whom you share that memory. I find evidence of this sometimes when a memory reaches my consciousness in the presence of the person it concerns: I notice a pause, the focus in their eyes changes, their skin flushes. I notice similar symptoms in myself. And I know, I just know they saw/felt something – or everything – the same way I did. My feeling is that it also happens from a distance. Time and time again, I have had the subtle confirmation that the realizations I reach through my energy therapies also have an effect on the people they concern: they start mentioning the same questions and worries as those that have been bubbling inside myself. It is as though we are connected by energy knots: if you untie one end, the other starts dangling as well. Inversely, if everyone keeps everything tightly tucked away, chances are the knots will always remain.

Whatever energy work you do on yourself has a far-reaching influence well beyond just yourself. I even wonder whether memories must always be created together for a knot to develop and hence for its untying to influence someone else. Throughout the energy work, for instance, I have been getting these mysterious recurrent images, images I cannot really place and which make me wonder whether I have absorbed them from someone else. One such type of images is a man I see/feel taking drugs – sniffing and needles and all – while I myself have never taken any hard drugs and never seen anyone in real life putting a needle to their arm to that end. Of course, this could be a memory from a movie. Or a combination of memories, such as people I saw snorting and my experience of getting blood drawn. Or it could be the way my mind expresses distress. What is very strange about it is that I actually feel the agitation, the anger or the sadness before the drug intake and then I feel the injection and this complete relaxation going through my body after the images fade. So, what is this? I do not know. That is when I usually tense up because I do not have any confirmed rational explanation for it, and it really irritates me.

You might wonder why I feel such an urge to rationalize everything. It is such a headache, I agree. All my therapists tell me: just let go! It does not fit into their philosophy to hang on to and analyze things like I do. It is unhealthy and depletes your resources. And maybe if I had been born in India, Nepal, Taiwan or China, I would be able to listen to them. Because I really wish I could! But here, where yang is king and where the left brain leads the dance, I just cannot seem to. I need tangible proof in order to let go. I must make sure it is not paranoia or some other form of insanity. I must understand. And the real reason for it is that it is the only way to get myself recognized in a system that typically dismisses or even belittles people like me. And this makes me both sad and angry. Why is it so difficult for our Western and global societies to admit that we are so much more than simple intellects? Why are we not taught in schools that each of us is part of a broad spectrum of sensitivities that manifest themselves in many different ways?

Luckily, there is the internet. I namely remember a documentary a few years back that gave some of my experiences long-awaited sense. It showed how the CIA use telepathy to gather information they would not otherwise have access to. But although the piece reassured me quite a bit, it was still only a sporadic source of information. I wanted more. Recently – finally – I found an explanation in the recording of the absolutely fantastic lecture Gregg Braden gave in Italy in March 2007 (published on YouTube in October 2016). He explains the principles of quantum physics – or new physics – and how we are all connected and each of us is an antenna that both emits and receives information. What a relief!

And yet: sometimes wonder whether i would not be better off if I were a fully-fledged medium. At least then I would have some kind of stronger evidence to show for my experiences and know with greater certainty that I am not imagining things. I suppose I could even make a business out of it. But no such luck: I have the burden without the benefits. Jokes aside, it is probably far from easy for mediums either. A great two-piece documentary on the topic is one of Anthony Chene’s older documentaries: ‘Au-delà de notre vue’. (Tistrya also makes English-speaking pieces.) It shows how, while mentalities might be evolving, there is still a long way to go before we find that balance between intellect and intuition. And while I hope that communicating openly and honestly about it can contribute to paving the road, I feel we need much more. We probably need a revolution – a meditate, constellate, liver cleanse revolution (yes: in that order).